


Everything You Want Is On The Other Side of Fear

by fairlylocaldreamer



Category: Divergent Series - Veronica Roth
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, I hated the original ending so here we are
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-14
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:13:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26461732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairlylocaldreamer/pseuds/fairlylocaldreamer
Summary: The one where Tris Prior lives
Relationships: Four | Tobias Eaton/Tris Prior
Comments: 4
Kudos: 37





	Everything You Want Is On The Other Side of Fear

At first, he's just standing still- the world trembles beneath his feet, his vision going blurry, and then he's running, running faster than he's ever run before, his feet pounding against the tiles of the Bureau. He doesn't know if Christina, or Cara, or Caleb are following him and he doesn't care. Her name pounds in his head like a second heartbeat.

_Tris, Tris, Tris._

He skids down the hallway where Uriah's room is and moves deeper into the compound, to where they keep the critically wounded. Cara's words bounce around his skull.

_Fatally shot_ , she said. _They don't think she's going to make it_.

He knows he's found her room because there are so many people; orders are being shouted and hands grab at his forearms, trying to pull him away.

"Let me through! I have to see her!" He doesn't recognize his own voice. All he knows is that Tris is in there, and she's _dying_ , and he's not next to her and she can't die alone, not surrounded by people who don't know her, don't care about her, don't _love her_ the way he loves her.

"Let him through." He thinks it's Cara who speaks, and the hands trying to push him away disappear.

Tris is laying on a medical cot. Her frame is so small her feet don't even touch the end of the bed, and her face is grey and pale. Her hand is warm but limp when he reaches out to grasp it, and Tobias stares at the girl he loves and wishes the world would stop being so still.

***

Tris is in a coma. She's been sleeping for days, and Tobias hasn't slept in what feels like weeks. He only eats because Christina and Zeke force him to, but he doesn't leave her side. When he thinks no one is looking, he cries.

On the ninth day, doctors of the Bureau enter her room. Tobias looks up, dazed. 

The doctors exchange glances and he straightens, blinking sleep from his eyes.

"Anything new?"

One of the doctors, a stocky brunette, clears her throat. "Tobias." She stops and clears her throat again. "We... the situation Tris is in is very... delicate. And... we don't think she's going to wake up."

Tobias feels anger starting to bubble in his veins and it feels good, to feel something other than overwhelming pain. "I don't care if you don't think she's going to wake up," he snaps. "You promised you would do your best."

"And we did," one of the nurses interjects. "But you need to look at the facts, Tobias. She's not coming back. It'd be better if we just unplug her."

He's on his feet so fast his chair topples over behind him. "You're not unplugging her." His voice is dangerously low and makes the nurse back up nervously. "You're going to keep your promise, and you're going to keep trying." The volume of his voice rises. "You said you would save her. Save her!" He's screaming and security guards flock in, grabbing at his shoulders. "You're going to fix her or I swear to God, I'll shoot you myself! Help her, you promised you would! Help her! Please, help her-"

He glances over at Tris, laying so still, her hair a halo of gold around her head. The fight drains out of him and he slumps to the ground, pushing back his tears.

There's a moment of silence. The guards cautiously let go of his arms, and the doctor speaks again. "Very well, Tobias. We will keep trying. But we can't guarantee that you will get your Tris back."

And then he's left alone again in her tiny room. He takes a deep breath and wipes his eyes, fixing his knocked over chair upright. He takes her hand and tries to fight against the pain.

***

"Mom?"

Her mother smiles down at her and Tris wants to cry.

"Beatrice." She bends down, taking Tris's face in her hands. "It's okay. You're okay. You're safe now."

And Tris does start crying, bringing one of her palms to cup her mother's. "I missed you so much."

"And I missed you, Beatrice. Now come on. It's time to go." She helps Tris to her feet. Her body aches, but she can take it. She's felt worse, after all. Her mother turns away and Tris grabs her arm.

"Mom, wait. What about my friends? Christina? What about Tobias and Caleb? I can't leave them behind." A panicked sensation invades her lungs when her mother looks at her and says,

"You have to. You can't have us all, Tris. This is one part, and they are in the other. You can't go back now." Her hand clamps around her wrist.

"No." The panicked feeling intensifies. "No, I can't go. I wanted to live, Mom. I thought I didn't and then I realized I did and I don't want to die! I can't die, Mom, not now!" Her mother's grip is iron and doesn't budge as Tris struggles, trying to break free. She stumbles as she's dragged across the room, towards the door. Something inside her screams that she can't go through it. Once she does, she won't be able to go back.

Her mother's shoulder is through the door frame. Tris watches in horror as her forearm starts to go through. Her left leg. Part of her shoulder. She screams.

Her mother's face peers back at her, draped in hazy white. Tris looks at her, memorizing the lines of her face. She knows she won't see her mother again.

"I'm sorry, Mom," she whispers. With the last of her strength, she wrenches free of her mother's grip and then she's falling, falling, falling.

***

When the steady beeping of Tris's heart stops, Tobias lets out a strangled scream. Doctors rush into the room and push him aside and all he can do is stand there and watch as they rip open Tris's hospital gown, trying to bring her back.

"One, two, three!" Her frail body convulses violently then jerks back down, limp. "Again! One, two, three!" The smell of electricity fills the air and Tobias gags.

He turns away and leans his forehead on the wall. "C'mon, Tris." He mutters. "I know you can do it. Come on. Come on. Please."

The commotion behind him stops and he turns, ready to yell at them to keep going, and then-

And then Tris coughs. Her eyes snap open and she gasps, her hands grasping wildly at the air. "Mom!"

"Tris!" He shoves his way through doctors and leans over her, framing her face with his hands. Her eyes are on him but not seeing him and he gets the irrational urge to shake her. Instead, he brushes some of the hair from her face. "Tris! You're okay. It's me, Tris. Tobias."

She stops moving and recognition dawns on her face. "Tobias," she says, and her eyes roll into the back of her head.

"She's just unconscious now," Tobias hears one of the doctors say. He's crying again, in front of all these people, and couldn't care less because Tris woke up and she's alive.

The word thrums through his veins like a second heartbeat.

_Alive, alive, alive._

*** Two and a half years later ***

Though the Dauntless compound is not technically the Dauntless compound anymore, the graffiti has stayed on the walls, a reminder of where they came from. Tris lets herself be led to the tiny ledge where Tobias first told her his name, to the ledge where they began.

"You're nervous," she notes as they sit down. "Why?"

"I am not," he says, scowling. To anyone else, he might look intimidating. To her, he looks beautiful. She raises her eyebrows at him and he groans. "Okay, maybe a little." He reaches up to rub the back of his neck, where the flames of his tattoo still peek out from under his collar. He shifts to look at her and she mimics him.

"And why are you nervous?"

His eyes meet her, sapphire blue on near grey. The splash of light blue near his right iris seems to twinkle. "I... wanted to give you this." He reaches into his jacket pocket and pulls out a ring on a simple silver chain.

The ring, too, is simple, just a small silver band. It reminds Tris of the Abnegation wedding rings, and the thought makes her chest ache just a little.

"It's too big for my fingers," she blurts out.

Tobias rolls his eyes. "Yeah, that's what the chain is for. Figured it'd be easier to punch someone if it's around your neck the next time we need to save the city." He's still holding it in his open palm and Tris notices his fingers are shaking.

She grins. "Are you asking me to marry you, Four?"

"No!" he says, laughing nervously. "Well, yeah. If you want to get married, we can. But what I'm asking you is to... stay with me. Forever."

_Forever_. The word has so much meaning, yet carries no meaning at all. What is forever? Two years, three? Until they're grey and old? Until they're gone?

Forever won't be easy. It's still not, even years later. There are nights when Tris wakes up screaming, or crying, or both. There are nights when her name is a hoarse shout on Tobias's lips, when the faces of the people they've lost, the things they've done, who they've become, plague their nightmares. 

But forever is what Tris wants. The Abnegation in her, the little sliver that won't leave or let go, argues that wanting is selfish. But Tris is no longer Abnegation; she's no longer Dauntless or Divergent, either. She is Tris Prior. She is selfless and smart and honest and giving and brave and _alive_.

She reaches out and slips the chain around her neck. The ring is a comforting weight next to her heartbeat. "Of course I'll stay with you, Tobias. Forever."

He brands the word on her skin with his lips, kissing her forehead and between her eyebrows and her nose and finally, he tilts her head up so he can kiss her lips. Right there on that tiny ledge, hidden from the world, they begin leaving behind the past and start looking towards the future.

_Forever, forever, forever._

**Author's Note:**

> if you know me from my twenty one pilots fics... no you don't <3


End file.
